Revisiting Buried Treasure

Seth Apter at The Altered Page, recently put out a call to Collaborative Participants for a Buried Treasure 2010, or a collaborative reunion, if you will. To learn more about this project, please visit Seth at his blog, or go directly to the post via the second link. The general concept is, we are to find a "buried treasure," a post we want to show again.

The post I am featuring is an example of why I started this blog. Way back in September, 2007, I didn't know much about blogging, or how to manipulate my photos in Blogger. Although I had registered the blog over two years before that, it wasn't until August 2007 I took this blog seriously.

At that time, I decided to turn it into a personal journal. Rather than write everything in a notebook by hand, I chose to document my successes and failures on my blog. If the world came, that would be fine. If not, I was content to keep the records for my own edification. It was the best possible scenario for me, because I didn't have to write everything, painfully gripping a pen or pencil, and I had photos that I didn't have to print out to add to some paper journal. I was also reducing my carbon footprint, by not using printer paper or ink either, but would have this option in case I needed it.

But the world did come to my little blog. And I started joining collaborations, several of which were by invitation from Seth. And I started making friends across and around the world, and for that I am grateful. So today, I dug deep, way below the surface, and found that . . .

one of my first "tutorials" was making paper from day lilies. I followed up with the finished paper. I hope you will revisit these posts at your convenience. After all, there are a lot of posts to uncover or discover today. Be sure to check out Seth's blog for the links to the other participants.

For those of you who are new to my blog, I spotlight a new blog each day. Originally, I was going to treat today's blog pick separately, because this collaboration post has its own link through Seth. Since I'd already spotlighted Seth, I needed to find a blog that would compliment this collaboration post. Then I found Old Paper Art, authored by Dave Dube who lives in Montana in the US, also known as MrCachet, and decided that since he was planning to be a part of this collaboration anyway, I would include today's blog along with this post.

It's no secret I want to spotlight men as much as possible, especially those who make good art, have interesting blogs, and write well. That describes today's choice, Old Paper Art. MrCachet is not only a great artist, the USPS also thinks so, and recently commissioned him to make two first day covers. He has also made many other first day covers. While following a first day cover link on his blog, I learned:

Cachet: Any textual or graphic design which has been applied to a cover usually, but not always, on the left side of the envelope. A cachet may be produced by any means— printed, rubberstamped, handdrawn, etc. A first day cachet should be related specifically to the stamp on the cover.

Quoted from the American First Day Cover Society web site.

In addition to his first day editions, MrCachet collects old paper art, fondly known as ephemera, and puts it to spectacular use by adding his own take on the original paper. I hope you will check out his blog while digging for Buried Treasure today.